Social and Communicative Anxiety

Social anxiety refers to psychological distress experienced in reaction to the mere presence of people, whereas the term communicative anxiety is used to describe the fear associated with either real or anticipated communication with others. It should be fairly obvious that communication scholars would focus most of their attention on anxiety associated with communication. Communication scholars have, in fact, conducted numerous studies designed to develop an understanding of communicative anxiety principally because anxiety in social situations is the antithesis of social composure. Compared to composed communicators, those who are communicatively anxious avoid social interaction when possible, speak less when required to engage in conversation, are less fluent, and experience far more physiological distress.

Researchers have measured the constructs of social anxiety and communicative anxiety in several ways. By far the most popular is through the use of questionnaires that require respondents to note the amount of anxiety they experience in a variety of social situations, including public speaking and conversations with strangers. Although less frequently used, researchers have measured physiological responses such as heart rate as well as behavioral manifestations such as trembling, blushing, and disfluency. In a few studies of children, researchers have used the assessments by parents, teachers, or peers as a measure of a child's level of social anxiety.

One of the major theoretical issues explored in the research literature is whether social and communicative anxiety are characteristic facets of personality or whether they are merely transitory conditions brought on by features of the environment and demands of the situation. A huge body of research has accumulated in which communicative anxiety has been examined as a personality characteristic or trait. James C. McCroskey coined the term communication apprehension to refer to the trait version of communicative anxiety. Communication apprehension refers to the enduring predisposition or proneness to experience anxiety when required to communicate with others. Over the years, research has shown that many people do seem to display a predisposition to experience communicative anxiety. Highly apprehensive people experience anxiety more frequently in social situations and with more intensity than do people low in the trait. Furthermore, research has indicated that people high in communication apprehension make a number of life choices designed to minimize contact with others. Choosing a profession that requires little or no contact with other people is an example of such a choice.

Research also shows that aspects of the situation can influence the level of anxiety felt during social interaction. For most people, speaking to superiors, being placed in a conspicuous situation, being unprepared, or receiving negative feedback elevate transient anxiety levels. Short-term or transient anxiety is called state anxiety. Research also shows, however, that not only do people high in trait communication apprehension experience higher levels of anxiety when these types of situational factors are present, but also they tend to exaggerate the [Page 891]potency of these features. For instance, highly apprehensive speakers interpret the same feedback as more negative than do people low in the trait.

Another question that has been tackled by researchers interested in social and communicative anxiety concerns the origins of the predisposition to experience social and communicative anxiety. One school of thought is that communication apprehension results from a history of negative reactions from significant others such as parents, peers, and teachers. According to this view, people who experience a pattern of predominately positive response to their communicative efforts developed into adults with no or little fear of communication. In contrast, children who were ridiculed or punished in other ways for expressing themselves grow up to associate the prospect of communicating with embarrassment and humiliation.

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